This isn't true under the current terminology, where Democrats have assigned themselves the title of "the left" with the enthusiastic agreement of Republicans. And while that's a new situation, we're also currently experiencing a vast majority of people who identify as "left" falling under two categories: Obama socialists, who were enthusiastic supporters of candidate Obama and were disappointed in the absolutely traditional run of his presidency, esp. its second term; and Clinton socialists, who went along with the catastrophe of the 2016 Democratic primary because they let themselves be convinced that while they mostly agreed with Sanders, H. Clinton was the only one who could defeat Trump (and they resent the party for this.)
These aren't intellectual positions at all, they're just soap opera stuff. If they've picked up anything about political economy, it was because they were in left-wing spaces during the rise of the Sanders campaign. As far as I can tell, all they took away from it is the slur "tankie," which they think has something to do with Tienanmen Square and should be screamed at anyone anyone to the left of Bill Kristol.
Tankies are the people who I'd loosely call neostalinists, they're seemingly for a Soviet style violent revolution of the proletariat - they're also the people who are often reflexively anti-american, and pro-russia, because america is the force of imperialism. There are many socialists who are fine with achieving socialism via electoral means those people are not tankies - tankies are generally not okay with waiting for that.
These aren't intellectual positions at all, they're just soap opera stuff. If they've picked up anything about political economy, it was because they were in left-wing spaces during the rise of the Sanders campaign. As far as I can tell, all they took away from it is the slur "tankie," which they think has something to do with Tienanmen Square and should be screamed at anyone anyone to the left of Bill Kristol.